International human rights law sets out the fundamental
obligations by which governments must protect the rights of all persons under their
authority, including members of ethnic, national or religious minorities. It is
a duty of every government to undertake effective measures to prevent ethnic
and religious violence and to vigorously investigate and prosecute
perpetrators. Authorities should, in addition, publicly and unequivocally
condemn the violence, in order to reiterate that the violence is unacceptable
and express support to the minorities at risk. The authorities in Serbia have often failed to fulfill these obligations.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), which the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro succeeded to in
2001, each state undertakes to respect and to ensure to all persons their
fundamental rights without distinction of any kind, including race, language,
religion, national origin, or other status.174 Each state must take the necessary steps
to adopt legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to
the rights recognized in the Covenant.175 According to the Human Rights Committee,
the international body empowered to monitor compliance with the ICCPR, states
may be in violation of the Covenant by permitting or failing to take
appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish,
investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts [violating Covenant rights]
by private persons or entities.176

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination, which Serbia and Montenegro succeeded to in 2001,
obliges states to guarantee everyone, without distinction as to race, color,
or national or ethnic origin security of person and protection by the State
against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or
by any individual, group or institution.177

Government officials, and the police in particular, have
often denied ethnic motivation even before any meaningful investigation into
the incidents was completed. Such an approach suggests that the authorities do
not recognize the larger consequences of these offenses, or their impact on
vulnerable minorities.

The March 22, 2005 stabbing of a young Romani man by a group
of Serbs in the town of Vrsac, eastern Vojvodina, provides a recent example.
The head of the local police issued a statement on the same day, claiming that
the motive of the assault was not ethnic hostility. However, the testimony of
the victim, twenty-four year old S.S., suggests that he was attacked because of
his ethnicity. S.S. recounted the incident to Human Rights Watch:

I was standing in the Romani part of town, mahala,
some time around 2.30 in the afternoon, with two friends, listening music from
the car. We noticed a group of five young people, who were standing in front of
a café. I didnt know them, but they obviously knew me, because they called me
by name. They said Come here, S. One of my friends and I started walking
toward them, to see what they wanted. I was not looking for trouble, because
Ive always gotten along with everybody and never violated the law. When we got
close, they cursed my Gypsy mother and pulled out knives to attack us. We
stopped and headed back toward the car, but they went after us. There were some
elderly women standing there, and these men insulted them, cursed their Gypsy
mothers and stuff. Our friend who had stayed beside the car took some sticks
from the car and passed it to me and my friend to defend ourselves. But one of
the attackers stabbed me in my chest, right below my left shoulder. I fainted a
little bit later.178

The police arrived soon after the beginning of the assault
and arrested the attackers. The police identified the man who stabbed S.S. as
nineteen year old Ilija Marinkovic. Despite the racial epithets and abuse
directed at the Roma by the attackers, the head of the Vrsac police told the
media that ethnic bigotry had not been a motive, and that the police would
bring criminal charges against Marinkovic and others for participation in
fight.179
As of September 2005, the case was under investigation at the Municipal court
in Vrsac.180

In the course of Human Rights Watchs research into violence
against minorities in Serbia, a number of victims expressed frustration with
the indifferent reaction from the police when victims made reports about the
incidents. The claims about police reactions emerge frequently, suggesting that
they are credible.

Serbias recent history provides an additional reason why
allegations of anti-minority bias on the part of police appear perfectly
plausible. The police force was a key institution in the ultra nationalistic
government of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic during 1990s.
Non-Serbs were virtually excluded from its ranks. Nearly five years after the
removal of Milosevic from power in October 2000, Serbia still has a long way to
go before ultra-nationalism is eradicated from police service and from the
Serbian society as a whole. The continued electoral strength of the
ultra-nationalistic Serbian Radical Party, unparalleled in Europe, is only one
illustration of the resilience of an anti-minority stance.181 Minorities are still
grossly underrepresented among the police personnel (see above, Structure of
the Police, Prosecuting and Judicial Authorities).

Minorities frequently complain that police tolerate ongoing
aggressive acts by Serbian ultra-nationalists. Slovaks in the Vojvodina village
of Lug, for example, told Human Rights Watch that prior to mid-2004, the Serbian
police patrolling in the village were taking the side of Serb thugs who were
often provoking brawls with local Slovak youth.182 On March 13, 2004, the
police separated a group of Susek Serbs and Lug Slovaks who were fighting. After
the two groups were separated, the Serbs allegedly continued to curse Tot
mothers and waved metal bars to demonstrate their strength.183 According to witnesses
interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the police tolerated the Serbs behavior,
and insisted that Slovaks go home.184

After the most serious incident which occurred in Lug, on April 3, 2004, in which three Serbs beat the two Slovak youths M.M. and J.G., the police
reportedly reacted with indifference when M.M. entered the village café covered
by blood. Twenty-three year old ethnic Slovak D.H., who was present in the café
when M.M. walked in, approached the police and asked Didnt you see what the
guy looked like? According to D.H., the policemen showed little interest in
what was going on outside.185

On March 17, 2004, according to the Mufti of Nis, when he
called the police number available to the general public to report crimes, the
person at the other end of the line said We know the mosque is burning, and it
should be burning.186
On December 1, 2004, a group of four or five Serbs allegedly beat a Hungarian
from the village of Doroslovo at a party for ethnic Hungarian students in Subotica. According to an eyewitness interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the police were
slow to intervene, and then simply allowed the assailants to leave.187

Human Rights Watch received similar complaints during 2005. In
the late hours of March 27, 2005, unknown perpetrators painted Death to
Adventists! on the fence surrounding the Adventist Faculty of Theology, in Belgrade. The president of the Main Board of the Adventist Church in Serbia, Miodrag Zivanovic, reported the incident to the police the following day. According the
Zivanovic, the police told him We also get attacked, it is not a big deal.188 In
early July 2005, when Serb apologists of the July 1995 genocide in Srebrenica
damaged billboards in Belgrade commemorating the genocide, the police
reportedly took no action to stop them and merely permitted those responsible
to continue on their way.189

Serbian officials, with some exceptions, have failed to adequately
condemn acts of ethnic violence by ethnic Serb ultra nationalists, or to take
other steps to decrease tensions among the various ethnic communities. Those in
the government of Serbia who could have made a real impact, had they spoken
out, have instead invested more effort on keeping the violence within certain
levels and placating the perpetrators.

By contrast, local politicians in Vojvodina have in most
cases unambiguously condemned the violence against minorities where it took
place in their local communities.190
The Executive Council of the Vojvodina Assembly has expressed similar
disapproval of violence in Vojvodina.191 Given the limited powers of these
structures, however, the impact of these condemnations is necessarily modest.

The statement by the Serbian Minister of Interior Vladan
Jocic, shortly after midnight on March 18, 2004, epitomizes the governments unwillingness to strongly confront ethnic violence. At the time Jocic was
being interviewed on a popular television network (TV BK), demonstrators had
already set on fire the mosque in Nis, and were about to burn the mosque in the
capital Belgrade. Crowds were also damaging Albanian and Gorani shops in Novi Sad. Jocic had this message to the public: The citizens are justifiably embittered. However,
in this way they will not help our citizens in Kosovo. The police have not used
violence against its own people. We should be patient, because in this way we
are not going to solve the problems ahead of us.192 The ministers
disapproval of the ongoing violence was easily understood to be half-hearted
and his message to the rioters was effectively that the police response would
not be a forceful one.193

Government officials have also failed to take the kind of
action that would express the government support for, and solidarity with, Serbias minorities. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, for example, has never visited the
mosque in Belgrade, which was damaged in the March 2004 violence.194 For
the first half of 2004, government officials refrained from condemning
ultra-nationalistic incidents against Hungarians and other minorities even
after they became a high-profile public issue in Serbia. The first time a
significant national government official condemned the violence was in July
2004, when Prime Minister Kostunica met with the delegation of the Hungarian
national council in Serbia. Kostunica expressed concern and condemned
ethnically motivated attacks on the ethnic Hungarians.195 In September 2004,
Kostunica and the Minister of Serbia and Montenegro for Human and Minorities
Rights Rasim Ljajic visited Vojvodina and vowed to end ethnic intolerance.196 In
June and July 2005, ahead of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the
genocide committed in July 1995 in Srebrenica, Serbian government officials
failed to condemn repeated expressions of approval of the genocide by
ultra-nationalists in Serbia.

In spite of the numerous incidents against the minorities
during 2004 and 2005, there were no criminal convictions against adults for
violations of article 134. Diverting incitement crimes into the zone of
misdemeanors and ordinary offenses of violent behavior has important implications.
First, the punishments are significantly lighter than for incitement to
ethnic/religious hatred, and in the case of misdemeanor proceedings the
penalties are almost symbolic. Second, the implicit message to society is that
inciting hatred against minorities should not be taken especially seriously.

One trial started and terminated before the district court
in Sremska Mitrovica, resulting in the acquittal of the defendant in December
2004.197
In the same month, the district court in Sombor concluded an article 134 trial
by ordering intensive parental supervision of a minor who painted graffiti
calling for the slaughter of ethnic Croats.198 As of June 2005, there was also an
ongoing case in Sremska Mitrovica against three minors, a case against an individual
in the Novi Sad district court, and a trial in the Pancevo district court, all
on article 134 charges.199
Prosecutors in Subotica and Zrenjanin, whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in
the course of its research, did not issue any indictments under that article.200 Nor
have the prosecutors in Nis, Belgrade, and other towns in Serbia issued article 134 indictments for offenses described in this report.

There have been no indictments in relation to the March 2004
attacks against ethnic Albanians, Muslims and Roma in Vojvodina either under
article 134 or for regular criminal offenses.201 A small number of
offenders who clashed with the police in Novi Sad in March 2004 faced
misdemeanor proceedings, on benign charges such as indecent, impudent, and
unscrupulous behavior. Those who clashed with the police in Belgrade are being
investigated for the crime of preventing an official in the performance of
police duties. As of July 2005, two people in Belgrade and eleven people in Nis have been indicted for their alleged involvement in the March 2004 mosque attacks in
those cities. The charges in those cases pertain to participation in a group
that commits violent acts.

The failure to charge anyone involved in the March violence
with offenses under article 134, despite strong evidence of intention to incite
hatred, demonstrates the reluctance of authorities to pursue incitement
charges, and the failure to take seriously the phenomenon of anti-minority
violence in Serbia.

The drunken Serb youths (all of them over 18 years of age)
who vandalized a number of premises belonging to Slovak and Protestant
communities in Backa Palanka in March 2004, were charged with damaging someone
elses belongings and received suspended prison sentences ranging from six
months to one year.202
Three Serb adults who hung anti-Semitic posters in Belgrade on March 22, 2005
were sentenced to a ten-day imprisonment for misdemeanor (for indecent,
impudent, and ruthless behavior).203

Prosecutors usually explain that the reason they hardly ever
resort to article 134 lies in their perception that it is difficult to prove
the intent or advertent recklessness to incite hatred behind the offense.204Prosecutors pointed out that the crowds in Novi Sad who attacked Albanian
stores and Roma settlements on March 17 and 18, 2004, also smashed several
windows on the building of the Executive Council of Vojvodina Assembly.205 Similarly,
in the incident in Backa Palanka on March 28, 2004, some of the property attacked belonged to ethnic Serbs.206
Prosecutors involved in the latter case have taken this to mean than that the
attackers, who later in the evening targeted Albanians and Roma, were simply
hooligans.

Prosecutors may be overestimating the difficulty of proving
the perpetrators intent or recklessness. For example, the damage done to the
Executive Council building in Novi Sad in March 2004 did not mean that the
attacks soon after on Albanians and Roma property were not intended to incite
to ethnic violence. Motives of the perpetrators may vary depending on the
target.207
The fact that a perpetrator may have mixed motives is entirely consistent with
the purpose of article 134. Existence of additional factors does not cancel out
existence of nationalistic motive, required for conviction under article 134.208

In those cases in which religious sites were targeted, the
intent or advertent recklessness required for the incitement offense can be
discerned from the very choice of the target. An attack on a mosque or Islamic
center is an invitation for the wider community to endorse the use of violence
against the community whose identity the object symbolizes. Moreover,
demonstrators in Nis, Belgrade, and Novi Sad called openly for hatred against
ethnic Albanians (who are mostly Muslims) when they chanted Kill, kill Shiptar!
during the attacks on mosques and Islamic center (see above, Nis, March 17, 2004: Islam Aga Mosque, Belgrade, March 18, 2004: Bajrakli Mosque, and Novi Sad, March 18, 2004: Islamic Center (medzlis). In any event, it is
always open to the prosecutor to opt for lesser charges after the presentation
of the evidence and before the conclusion of the trial, if incitement to hatred
is not proved.

Prosecutors may also be succumbing to dominant
ultra-nationalistic climate in Serbian society, in which prosecuting Serb
suspects for anti-ethnic violence would be seen as unpatriotic. It is difficult
to find any other explanation for the failure of prosecutors to use article 134
against the participants in the burning of the mosques in Belgrade and Nis on March 17, 2004.209

[176]Human
Rights Committee, General Comment 31, Nature of the General Legal Obligation on
States Parties to the Covenant, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13 (2004), para.
8.

[177]
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, Adopted and opened for signature and ratification by General
Assembly resolution 2106 (XX) of 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January
1969, article 5(b).

[181]
The Serbian Radical Party received the largest number of votes in the
parliamentary elections in Serbia in December 2003, and in the presidential
elections in June 2004 its candidate Tomislav Nikolic made it into the second
round of the elections, in which he was narrowly defeated by the moderate Boris
Tadic.

[182]
After mid-2004, the police patrolling in Lug became more frequent in the past,
and included participation of policemen who had not worked in the village
before.

[188]
Human Rights Watch interview with Miodrag Zivanovic, president of the Main
Board of the Adventist Church in Serbia, Belgrade, June 2, 2005.

[189]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Andrej Nosov, July 10, 2005. Nosov,
the director of the nongovernmental organization Youth Initiative, which
erected the billboards in Belgrade, was present at one situation in which the
police spoke to the perpetrators and let them leave, and received information
from an eyewitness, a woman in New Belgrade (a district of the capital), about
an identical occurrence in that part of town.

[190]
Examples of local authorities condemnation of nationalistic violence include:

In Stara Pazova, the executive council of the
municipal assembly condemned the hate messages written on May 29/30, 2004, on
facades of Slovak houses, religious objects belonging to non-Orthodox
communities, and a kiosk owned by an ethnic Croat. Human Rights Watch telephone
interview with Zlatusa Totova, then-president of the Executive Council of Stara
Pazova Municipal Assembly, July 28, 2004.

Zabalj municipal assembly condemned incidents in
mid-March in the village of Djurdjevo, where, following the anti-Serb violence
in Kosovo on March 17/18, groups of Serbs repeatedly beat young Ruthenians and
painted nationalistic graffiti demanding expulsion of the Ruthenian minority. Human
Rights Watch interview with Bogdan Vislavski, member of the Administrative Council
of the Ruthenian Cultural Home Taras Shevchenko, Novi Sad, January 18, 2005.

[192]
Human Rights Watch made a contemporaneous note of Jocics
words as the program was being broadcast. Vladan Jocic interview on TV BK,
March 18, 2004.

[193]
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination calls upon states parties to discourage anything which tends to
strengthen racial division. International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination, article 2 (1)(e).

[196]
Kostunica: Incidenti ne mogu da budu povod inicijativi (Kostunica:
Incidents Do Not Justify the Initiative), Beta news agency, September 9, 2004, available at the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
and Montenegro, at
http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Srpski/Bilteni/Srpski/b090904_s.html#N8 (retrieved January 31, 2005).

[197]
See above, Stara Pazova, May 29/30, 2004: a Rare Case of Prosecution for
Incitement.

[199]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Ratko Galecic, Sremska Mitrovica
District Public Prosecutor, June 17, 2005; Human Rights Watch interview with Zoran Pavlovic, Novi Sad District Public Prosecutor, June 6, 2005; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Milan Niskanovic, Pancevo District Public
Prosecutor, September 5, 2005. The case in Sremska Mitrovica pertains to the
painting of graffiti with hate messages in Stara Pazova, on the night of May
29/30, 2004. In the Novi Sad case, a 20-year-old man painted Nazi symbols on
buildings in Novi Sad and the nearby town of Veternik; on the same day he also
beat a boy of mixed ethnicity in Novi Sad. The prosecutor in Pancevo issued an
indictment under article 134 against a married couple who allegedly cursed an
officer in the police station in the nearby town of Kovin with the words
Hungarian mother.

[205]
Novi Sad Municipal Public Prosecutor drew attention to that fact, which in his
opinion gives a more complete picture of the March 17 events in Novi Sad. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Novi Sad Municipal Public Prosecutor
Obrad Protic, January 27, 2005.

[207]
The prosecutor in the Backa Palanka case, analyzed below, faced this dilemma,
given the variety of targets assaulted by the offenders. See case Backa
Palanka, March 28-30, 2004: Three Religious Shrines and Slovak Cultural and
Publishing Society.

[208]
United Kingdom legislation governing racially-aggravated offenses, may
provide a useful comparison in this respect. The relevant section of the Crime
and Disorder Act specifically states that, It is immaterial for [establishing
perpetrators hostility based on the victim's membership of a racial or
religious group] whether or not the offender's hostility is also based, to any
extent, on any other factor. Crime and Disorder Act 1988, section 28.

[209]
On June 1, 2004, Nis District Public Prosecutor charged eleven persons for
participation in the group committing violent acts [participation in mob
violence] (article 230 of the Serbian Penal Code). Humanitarian Law Center, Inadequate Response of Police and Prosecutors to Burning of Mosques, press
release, June 07, 2004 [online], http://www.hlc.org.yu/english/Ethnic_Minorities/Serbia/index.php?file=753.html
(retrieved January 31, 2005). The same offense under article 230 is the legal
basis for the investigation into the March 17, 2004, burning of the mosque in Belgrade. See Istraga protiv sedam osoba zbog paljenja Bajrakli-dzamije (Investigation
Against Seven Persons Concerning the Burning of Bajrakli Mosque), B92
website, March 25, 2004 [online],